amsterdam

So the whole reason for this eurotrip was for a music festival in Amsterdam. Friends from Los Angeles, Washington DC, and New York were flying into Amsterdam to meet our friend, Lydia, who was flying in from Belfast.

After arriving in Amsterdam, first things first, Belgium fries. I know... we are in the Netherlands, but this is the closest I'm getting so I was on the prowl for some deep fried pomme de terre goodness. Luckily for me, I always do some research beforehand and I went straight to Vlaams Friteshuis Vleminckx. Tuck away in the narrow streets of Amsterdam, around the corner from some touristy shopping, was a little window front shop that sold fries with a variety of sauces. That's it. You know these people mean business when fries are the only thing on the menu. They have a strong list of sauces to choose from, my friend and I split a large fries and we chose to mayo, curry, and samurai sauce which had subtle wasabi flavor topped with dices onions.

A pictures is worth a thousand words and needless to say we were very pleased. Especially after 11 hours of traveling. However, this was just to hold us over until the main event.

Since the members of our group were all flying into Amsterdam from different locations, we decided that dinner was the best time to meet. We had 9:30pm reservations at Kantjil en de Tijger. Evidently, Indonesian-Dutch food is a big thing in Amsterdam - mainly a special menu called rijsttafels. Rijsttafels translated means rice plate, it consists of a tasting of many entrees so that a person can sample a little bit of everything off the menu. Stop right there. You had me at 'everything.'

Let's just say everyone left the restaurant full and satisfied. We were all reasonable moderate eaters who did not stuff our faces until we felt like we were going to split. Let's say that though it may or may not be true. Thank you Amsterdam.